Today we’d like to introduce you to Annie.
Hi Annie, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My timeline has been an adventure to say the least. What started off as being a lost college student on a pre-med streak working 5 jobs to dropping out and moving to Miami, Florida in under 24 hours to become a full time YouTube gamer alongside my brother, Moosecraft, a Famous YouTuber who guided me through the process. After almost a year of working 16 hours a day on YouTube and building my channel from scratch, I felt as though while I loved gaming… I wasn’t passionate about the content I was producing. Once I came to that realization, I soon after moved back to Philadelphia where I took on 6 different jobs in order to build my career and income. I am a clear example of the ideology that it takes trial and error to find what you truly love. While I was making very good money at only 19 years old, I caught myself working 20 hours a day with as little as 3 hours of sleep at night, which you can imagine was draining and unhealthy. During the day, I would manage a medical spa for 13 hours not seeing any daylight, only to come home and record videos for YouTube, tend to my graphic art clients, organize my social media clients’ content and marketing portfolios, facilitating merchandise, editing content, and etc. I would find myself working throughout the night and then take an hour to myself where I would simply drive around. From there I became more involved with cars once I purchased my Audi and began to modify it on my free time. It became a relaxing sensation and for once I felt truly passionate about something. It made working those long hours more bearable as it gave me a means to begin building my car more.
In my spare time, I would make funny TikToks about my love for my car to make my best friend and I laugh expecting no one to see them. Until one day a series of my videos had gone viral. The idea of being able to work around cars almost seemed surreal as I never thought it was an attainable dream until that moment. Growing up you are always told by your teachers to “follow your dreams”, but as an adult, that same idea is looked frowned upon if it doesn’t align with your family/society beliefs on how your life “should” be, but for once that saying that I overlooked so frivolously made sense. As a joke to prevent my apartment lease from automatically renewing, I said I was moving to Houston, Texas… until that joke began to make sense. Houston is the home of the biggest and most insane car community. I thought for once, who cares about money and stability, let me take a chance on myself and my dreams and drop everything and start fresh in Texas. Within the next week, I quit most of my jobs and moved down to Houston and pursued content creation full time while expanding my social media clientele into a full digital marketing company aiding in Brand Management, Graphic Design/Art work, and every corner of the digital marketing world.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Success wouldn’t be satisfying if there weren’t some speed bumps along the way to aid you to grow. I’ve had countless of obstacles I’ve had to overcome throughout the journey both personally, mentally, and career wise. One of the biggest obstacles I face daily involves sexism with female content creators, especially those in a male dominated industry. Over time, you start to look past the individuals who bring that negative thinking, but I do have countless of DMs daily from females who want to pursue content creation asking how I personally deal with those types of comments.
While at first, I will admit it was hard to overlook, I realized overtime that any negativity that a person brings isn’t realistically about you. They stem from the hater’s own insecurities that they then project towards you. The best thing to do is be yourself and kill them with kindness. Rather than stooping to their level and entertaining them, respond in the most kind and caring way, and you will be surprised just how many of them switch their mindset. It’s easy to judge someone on the internet as social media has become superficial and unmoderated at times, but if you take a moment to have a conversation with someone or understand their personality, you will realize that all these influencers and internet personas are just human at the end of the day. Another obstacle, that is wildly undiscussed is how lonely the journey to success can be. Taking a stance to decide “from here on, I will focus on myself” is one of the hardest decisions to make and go through with. Dropping all the toxic influences in your life, deviating from the beliefs that have been instilled in your head since childhood to follow your dreams, sacrificing going out to staying in and working and building yourself, creating routine to stay physically and mentally fit, all takes a lot of courage and sacrifice that is wildly underestimated.
Think about how many people write up their New Year’s Resolutions and stay strong for 2 weeks maybe even a month only to give up. It seems hard, right? That diet or fitness goal of getting that summer. The body you’ve always wanted. Now imagine you wake up tomorrow and for the rest of your life, you never take a break from your goals…no cheat days, only following your set schedule. To keep that focus, drive, and discip[ine for the rest of your life is one of the hardest decisions you can make that many don’t want to go through with, but everyone can do. Everyone has the ability to follow their dreams, but very few do. All those outside influences, the people you hang around with, the food that you consume, the schedule that you set yourself…everything can add up and it takes a lot of willpower to not give up and keep pushing through.
In the beginning of my journey, it felt very lonely as I had dropped a good 95% of the people in my life who I realized never truly believed in me. Once I did that, it honestly felt like a relief and relieved a lot of the stress in my life. My college experience lasted a whopping 3 months, and I “sacrificed” my young life to staying in and working on personal development instead. I don’t see that as much of a sacrifice as I don’t have an urge to go out and partying. But finding a balance between working and living has been a struggle to balance out, but everyday is a lesson to learn from and we never stop growing.
One of the biggest obstacles, I have faced from childhood that I speak openly about on social media to bring more awareness to the subject is ADHD. It was always hard with school especially as I was book smart, but my ability to focus on an exam was physically impossible at times which adversely affected my grades. As a kid, I always knew I was different as I was uncontrollably hyperactive and easily distractive, but with that came a big personality that allows you to bring so much thought and emotion into everything you do. Growing up, it was hard to not suppress that side of me when all a child wants to do is fit in and stay away from being called “different”. It was only towards the end of high school that I realized being normal is overrated, You are given one life, don’t worry about what others think of you, because no one is perfect and everyone is extraordinarily beautiful and different in their own way.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Currently, I am a full time automotive content creator as well as the CEO of a digital marketing company called Boosted Marketing. I am also developing an automotive apparel line that mixes premium street style designs with affordability making it available for all to enjoy. I’ve been around all aspects of social media and business management since elementary school and my strategies have aided countless influencers and companies into growing their brand exposure and sales. From a very young age, I’ve been working around the digital marketing field since 2014. My social media presence has become one of the fastest growing pages, growing well over 215k followers on Instagram and over 550k followers on TikTok all in the span of a year and a half. I even became an Instagram partner for being recognized as one of the fastest growing pages from Instagram Reels. The most important aspect in all of this is I wake up every morning feeling as though I’m on vacation, because what I do doesn’t feel like an overbearing weight on my shoulders, it’s something I am truly passionate about that fuels my soul to keep growing. I don’t look at my social pages and just see followers as some number, they are one big family to me who have supported me and given me the opportunity to pursue what I love all while being able to motivate them to follow their own dreams. A big goal of mine is to be that positive influence in their lives that tells them that their goals are attainable. I want to bring more enthusiasts to the car community especially now that the automotive world is heavily migrating from combustion engines to electric. I also focus on a lot of younger enthusiasts especially females, who like me were told that the automotive world is no place for a woman. It takes a lot of courage to deviate from cultural/societal beliefs and I want to be the figure to assure them that females can be in male dominated industries. One of the biggest things I’m proud of is the person I have become. I have gone through a long journey of personal development that finally brought me to this point. Growing up, I never really felt as tho I had a figure to look up to which ultimately led me to raising myself in a way. Having gone through many life experiences so early on in life, I matured at a very young age to be independent, while still being genuine in everything I do. I always say, “I’ve lived 35 years of life for a 21 year old”, but it’s because of my experiences that I am able to help mentor a lot of the other people in my life who are now going through the same things and be that figure for them to look up to. Many of the people who have watched me grow through the years have wondered how I haven’t given up yet, to have gone through so many obstacles and still keep the positive outlook on life, but through all those “failures” and highs and lows that I am proud that I didn’t. It’s taken a lot of time and introspection to grow myself mentally to be a person younger me would’ve looked up to, and I am so grateful to social media for now giving me the opportunity to spread that positive thinking to the world. It brings me so much joy to see others grow and find that self love within themselves, because everyone deserves to be happy.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
Coming from a person who has moved over 20 times in their life, I can from the bottom of my heart say that Houston, Texas is my favorite city I have ever lived in. One of the most evident reasons is the car scene. Coming from the east coast, I would say the car community in Houston is the most welcoming and passionate group off people you will find. There are individuals from all different types of car markets that come together to share their passion for cars, and that’s what truly embodies unity. The creativity and drive in the car community here is unmatched and you will see just about everything from twin turbo Lamborghinis to absolutely slammed and cambered cars driving on the roads here. It’s honestly every car enthusiasts dream come true, the ability to drive on any street and always have another modified car cruising with you, Let’s not forget those 6 line highways and basically the cheapest gas prices across the country. The car shows/meets are hosted almost everyday and because of the amazing weather car season is year-round. Aside from the amazing car community, Houston is also home of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet. My favorite part is the diversity and the drive of Houston residents. You will meet just about everyone here from all over the world with the most diverse interests; because of this and the Houston hospitality, it’s super easy to make friends! Call it the home of opportunity mixed with the amazing weather and liveliness of the city makes Houston the number one place to be, grow, and start your life!
Contact Info:
- Email: info@boostedmarketing.net
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itslifeofannie/?hl=en
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@itslifeofannie?lang=en
Image Credits
Dallas Nunez
